Afghanistan's All-Girls Robotics Team That Fled The Taliban Still Hopes To Work For The Country

The all-girls Afghan robotics team that last week fled the country following the Taliban takeover has said that they want to help others who remain in their country after the Taliban takeover.

The girls who, in 2017 created history when they won a medal at an international robotics competition held in the US was evacuated to Qatar and from there some of them have reached Mexico.

Reuters

Four members of the team, accompanied by a sister and another man, arrived Tuesday after travelling through six countries to reach Mexico.

"The reason that we left was that we didn't want our history to be ended by Taliban,'' one of them, identified only as Saghar, said.

"We wanted to continue the path that we started to continue to go for our achievements and to go for having our dreams through reality. So that's why we decided to leave Afghanistan and go for somewhere safe,'' she added.

AP

"The situation outside of our homes were really high, risky, and even especially for our team who have been, you know, has a high profile, status and achievement and which is not something that is in favor of the Taliban regime,'' said Saghar.

The young women had decided to flee a month or two before their western city of Herat fell to the Taliban in early August; the tension had become unbearable.

Reuters

"We were so stressed out we couldn't eat and sleep well for many days,'' said Saghar. "And we were like, even crying many times and sitting together and crying and thinking about what a solution can we have.''

Olga S¨¢nchez Cordero, Mexico¡¯s interior secretary, said Wednesday that Mexico would grant asylum ¡°to those Afghan citizens who require it.¡± In addition to the Afghan Dreamers, 124 Afghan media workers and their families found sanctuary there this week.

Reuters

For now, the robotics team members are thinking about the other Afghans they left behind: ¡°It was really quite hard when we decided to leave Afghanistan because we left our beloved ones over there, our home, our memories,¡± Saghar said. ¡°We had calls from the children and our families saying that please save us the same as you did for yourself. We hope that we find a way to help them as well.¡±